Mogens and Other Stories Part 2

and smiled at being thought so guileless, but Camilla walked along and looked so gentle and serious, that one would not doubt but that she was the very personification of benevolence itself.

The autumn weather remained so mild that the councilor stayed on at Cape Trafalgar for another whole month, and the effect of the benevolence was that Mogens came twice the first week and about every day the third.

It was one of the last days of fair weather.

It had rained early in the morning and had remained overclouded far down into the forenoon; but now the sun had come forth. Its rays were so strong and warm, that the garden-paths, the lawns and the branches of the trees were enveloped in a fine filmy mist. The councilor walked about cutting asters. Mogens and Camilla were in a corner of the garden to take down some late winter apples. He stood on a table with a basket on his arm, she stood on a chair holding out a big white ap.r.o.n by the corners.

"Well, and what happened then?" she called impatiently to Mogens, who had interrupted the fairy-tale he was telling in order to reach an apple which hung high up.

"Then," he continued, "the peasant began to run three times round himself and to sing: 'To Babylon, to Babylon, with an iron ring through my head.' Then he and his calf, his great-grandmother, and his black rooster flew away. They flew across oceans as broad as Arup Vejle, over mountains as high as the church at Jannerup, over Himmerland and through the Holstein lands even to the end of the world. There the kobold sat and ate breakfast; he had just finished when they came.

"'You ought to be a little more G.o.d-fearing, little father,' said the peasant, 'otherwise it might happen that you might miss the kingdom of heaven.'"

"Well, he would gladly be G.o.d-fearing."

"'Then you must say grace after meals,' said the peasant...."

"No, I won't go on with the story," said Mogens impatiently.

"Very well, then don't," said Camilla, and looked at him in surprise.

"I might as well say it at once," continued Mogens, "I want to ask you something, but you mustn't laugh at me."

Camilla jumped down from the chair.

"Tell me--no, I want to tell you something myself--here is the table and there is the hedge, if you won't be my bride, I'll leap with the basket over the hedge and stay away. One!"

Camilla glanced furtively at him, and noticed that the smile had vanished from his face.

"Two!"

He was quite pale with emotion.

"Yes," she whispered, and let go the ends of her ap.r.o.n so that the apples rolled toward all corners of the world and then she ran. But she did not run away from Mogens.

"Three," said she, when he reached her, but he kissed her nevertheless.

The councilor was interrupted among his asters, but the district-judge's son was too irreproachable a blending of nature and civilization for the councilor to raise objections.

It was late winter; the large heavy cover of snow, the result of a whole week's uninterrupted blowing, was in the process of rapidly melting away. The air was full of sunlight and reflection from the white snow, which in large, shining drops dripped down past the windows. Within the room all forms and colors had awakened, all lines and contours had come to life. Whatever was flat extended, whatever was bent curved, whatever was inclined slid, and whatever was broken refracted the more. All kinds of green tones mingled on the flower-table, from the softest dark-green to the sharpest yellow-green. Reddish brown tones flooded in flames across the surface of the mahogany table, and gold gleamed and sparkled from the knick-knacks, from the frames and moldings, but on the carpet all the colors broke and mingled in a joyous, shimmering confusion.

Camilla sat at the window and sewed, and she and the Graces on the mantle were quite enveloped in a reddish light from the red curtains Mogens walked slowly up and down the room, and pa.s.sed every moment in and out of slanting beams of light of pale rainbow-colored dust.

He was in talkative mood.

"Yes," he said, "they are a curious kind of people, these with whom you a.s.sociate. There isn't a thing between heaven and earth which they cannot dispose of in the turn of a hand. This is common, and that is n.o.ble; this is the most stupid thing that has been done since the creation of the world, and that is the wisest; this is so ugly, so ugly, and that is so beautiful it cannot be described. They agree so absolutely about all this, that it seems as if they had some sort of a table or something like that by which they figured things out, for they always get the same result, no matter what it may be. How alike they are to each other, these people! Every one of them knows the same things and talks about the same things, and all of them have the same words and the same opinions."

"You don't mean to say," Camilla protested, "that Carlsen and Ronholt have the same opinions."

"Yes, they are the finest of all, they belong to different parties!

Their fundamental principles are as different as night and day. No, they are not. They are in such agreement that it is a perfect joy. Perhaps there may be some little point about which they don't agree; perhaps, it is merely a misunderstanding. But heaven help me, if it isn't pure comedy to listen to them. It is as if they had prearranged to do everything possible not to agree. They begin by talking in a loud voice, and immediately talk themselves into a pa.s.sion. Then one of them in his pa.s.sion says something which he doesn't mean, and then the other one says the direct opposite which he doesn't mean either, and then the one attacks that which the other doesn't mean, and the other that which the first one didn't mean, and the game is on."

"But what have they done to you?"

"They annoy me, these fellows. If you look into their faces it is just as if you had it under seal that nothing especial is ever going to happen in the world in the future." Camilla laid down her sewing, went over and took hold of the corners of his coat collar and looked roguishly and questioningly at him.

"I cannot bear Carlsen," he said angrily, and tossed his head.

"Well, and then."

"And then you are very, very sweet," he murmured with a comic tenderness.

"And then?"

"And then," he burst out, "he looks at you and listens to you and talks to you in a way I don't like. He is to quit that, for you are mine and not his. Aren't you? You are not his, not his in any way. You are mine, you have bonded yourself to me as the doctor did to the devil; you are mine, body and soul, skin and bones, till all eternity."

She nodded a little frightened, looked trustfully at him; her eyes filled with tears, then she pressed close to him and he put his arms around her, bent over her, and kissed her on the forehead.

The same evening Mogens went to the station with the councilor who had received a sudden order in reference to an official tour which he was to make. On this account Camilla was to go to her aunt's the next morning and stay there until he returned.

When Mogens had seen his future father-in-law off, he went home, thinking of the fact that he now would not see Camilla for several days.

He turned into the street where she lived. It was long and narrow and little frequented. A cart rumbled away at the furthest end; in this direction, too, there was the sound of footsteps, which grew fainter and fainter. At the moment he heard nothing but the barking of a dog within the building behind him. He looked up at the house in which Camilla lived; as usual the ground-floor was dark. The white-washed panes received only a little restless life from the flickering gleam of the lantern of the house next door. On the second story the windows were open and from one of them a whole heap of planks protruded beyond the window-frame. Camilla's window was dark, dark also was everything above, except that in one of the attic windows there shimmered a white-golden gleam from the moon. Above the house the clouds were driving in a wild flight. In the houses on both sides the windows were lighted.

The dark house made Mogens sad. It stood there so forlorn and disconsolate; the open windows rattled on their hinges; water ran monotonously droning down the rainpipe; now and then a little water fell with a hollow dull thud at some spot which he could not see; the wind swept heavily through the street. The dark, dark house! Tears came into Mogen's eyes, an oppressive weight lay on his chest, and he was seized by a strange dark sensation that he had to reproach himself for something concerning Camilla. Then he had to think of his mother, and he felt a great desire of laying his head on her lap and weeping his fill.

For a long while he stood thus with his hand pressed against his breast until a wagon went through the street at a sharp pace; he followed it and went home. He had to stand for a long time and rattle the front door before it would open, then he ran humming up the stairs, and when he had entered the room he threw himself down on the sofa with one of Smollett's novels in his hand, and read and laughed till after midnight.

At last it grew too cold in the room, he leaped up and went stamping up and down to drive away the chill. He stopped at the window. The sky in one corner was so bright, that the snow-covered roofs faded into it. In another corner several long-drawn clouds drifted by, and the atmosphere beneath them had a curious reddish tinge, a sheen that wavered unsteadily, a red smoking fog. He tore open the window, fire had broken out in the direction of the councilor's. Down the stairs, down the street as fast as he could; down a cross-street, through a side-street, and then straight ahead. As yet he could not see anything, but as he turned round the corner he saw the red glow of fire. About a score of people clattered singly down the street. As they ran past each other, they asked where the fire was. The answer was "The sugar-refinery."

Mogens kept on running as quickly as before, but much easier at heart.

Still a few streets, there were more and more people, and they were talking now of the soap-factory. It lay directly opposite the councilor's. Mogens ran on as if possessed. There was only a single slanting cross-street left. It was quite filled with people: well-dressed men, ragged old women who stood talking in a slow, whining tone, yelling apprentices, over-dressed girls who whispered to each other, corner-loafers who stood as if rooted to the spot and cracked jokes, surprised drunkards and drunkards who quarreled, helpless policemen, and carriages that would go neither forwards nor backwards.

Mogens forced his way through the mult.i.tude. Now he was at the corner; the sparks were slowly falling down upon him. Up the street; there were showers of sparks, the window-panes on both sides were aglow, the factory was burning, the councilor's house was burning and the house next door also. There was nothing but smoke, fire and confusion, cries, curses, tiles that rattled down, blows of axes, wood that splintered, window-panes that jingled, jets of water that hissed, spluttered, and splashed, and amid all this the regular dull sob-like throb of the engines. Furniture, bedding, black helmets, ladders, shining b.u.t.tons, illuminated faces, wheels, ropes, tarpaulin, strange instruments; Mogens rushed into their midst, over, under it all, forward to the house.

The facade was brightly illuminated by the flames from the burning factory, smoke issued from between the tiles of the roof and rolled out of the open windows of the first story. Within the fire rumbled and crackled. There was a slow groaning sound, that turned into a rolling and crashing, and ended in a dull boom. Smoke, sparks, and flames issued in torment out of all the openings of the house. And then the flames began to play and crackle with redoubled strength and redoubled clearness. It was the middle part of the ceiling of the first floor that fell. Mogens with both hands seized a large scaling-ladder which leaned against the part of the factory which was not yet in flames. For a moment he held it vertically, but then it slipped away from him and fell over toward the councilor's house where it broke in a window-frame on the second story. Mogens ran up the ladder, and in through the opening.

At first he had to close his eyes on account of the pungent wood-smoke, and the heavy suffocating fumes which rose from the charred wood that the water had reached took his breath away. He was in the dining-room.

The living-room was a huge glowing abyss; the flames from the lower part of the house, now and then, almost reached up to the ceiling; the few boards that had remained hanging when the floor fell burned in brilliant yellowish-white flames; shadows and the gleam of flames flooded over the walls; the wall-paper here and there curled up, caught fire, and flew in flaming tatters down into the abyss; eager yellow flames licked their way up on the loosened moldings and picture-frames. Mogens crept over the ruins and fragments of the fallen wall towards the edge of the abyss, from which cold and hot blasts of air alternately struck his face; on the other side so much of the wall had fallen, that he could look into Camilla's room, while the part that hid the councilor's office still stood. It grew hotter and hotter; the skin of his face became taut, and he noticed, that his hair was crinkling. Something heavy glided past his shoulder and remained lying on his back and pressed him down to the floor; it was the girder which slowly had slipped out of place. He could not move, breathing became more and more difficult, his temples throbbed violently; to his left a jet of water splashed against the wall of the dining-room, and the wish rose in him, that the cold, cold drops, which scattered in all directions might fall on him. Then he heard a moan on the other side of the abyss, and he saw something white stir on the floor in Camilla's room. It was she. She lay on her knees, and while her hips were swaying, held her hands pressed against each side of her head. She rose slowly, and came towards the edge of the abyss. She stood straight upright, her arms hung limply down, and the head went to and fro limply on the neck. Very, very slowly the upper part of her body fell forward, her long, beautiful hair swept the floor; a short violent flash of flame, and it was gone, the next moment she plunged down into the flames.

Mogens uttered a moaning sound, short, deep and powerful, like the roar of a wild beast, and at the same time made a violent movement, as if to get away from the abyss. It was impossible on account of the girder. His hands groped over the fragments of wall, then they stiffened as it were in a mighty clasp over the debris, and he began to strike his forehead against the wreckage with a regular beat, and moaned: "Lord G.o.d, Lord G.o.d, Lord G.o.d."

Thus he lay. In the course of a little while, he noticed that there was something standing beside him and touching him. It was a fireman who had thrown the girder aside, and was about to carry him out of the house.

With a strong feeling of annoyance, Mogens noticed that he was lifted up and led away. The man carried him to the opening, and then Mogens had a clear perception that a wrong was being committed against him, and that the man who was carrying him had designs on his life. He tore himself out of his arms, seized a lathe that lay on the floor, struck the man over the head with it so that he staggered backward; he himself issued from the opening and ran erect down the ladder, holding the lathe above his head. Through the tumult, the smoke, the crowd of people, through empty streets, across desolate squares, out into the fields. Deep snow everywhere, at a little distance a black spot, it was a gravel-heap, that jutted out above the snow. He struck at it with the lathe, struck again and again, continued to strike at it; he wished to strike it dead, so that it might disappear; he wanted to run far away, and ran round about the heap and struck at it as if possessed. It would not, would not disappear; he hurled the lathe far away and flung himself upon the black heap to give it the finishing stroke. He got his hands full of small stones, it was gravel, it was a black heap of gravel. Why was he out here in the field burrowing in a black gravel-heap?--He smelled the smoke, the flames flashed round him, he saw Camilla sink down into them, he cried out aloud and rushed wildly across the field. He could not rid himself of the sight of the flames, he held his eyes shut: Flames, flames! He threw himself on the ground and pressed his face down into the snow: Flames! He leaped up, ran backward, ran forward, turned aside: Flames everywhere! He rushed further across the snow, past houses, past trees, past a terror-struck face, that stared out through a window-pane, round stacks of grain and through farm-yards, where dogs howled and tore at their chains. He ran round the front wing of a building and stood suddenly before a brightly, restlessly lighted window. The light did him good, the flames yielded to it; he went to the window and looked in. It was a brew-room, a girl stood at the hearth and stirred the kettle. The light which she held in her hand had a slightly reddish sheen on account of the dense fumes. Another girl was sitting down, plucking poultry, and a third was singeing it over a blazing straw-fire. When the flames grew weaker, new straw was put on, and they flared up again; then they again became weaker and still weaker; they went out. Mogens angrily broke a pane with his elbow, and slowly walked away. The girls inside screamed.

Then he ran again for a long time with a low moaning. Scattered flashes of memory of happy days came to him, and when they had pa.s.sed the darkness was twice as black. He could not bear to think of what had happened. It was impossible for it to have happened. He threw himself down on his knees and raised his hands toward heaven, the while he pleaded that that which had happened might be as though it had not occurred. For a long time he dragged himself along on his knees with his eyes steadfastly fixed on the sky, as if afraid it might slip away from him to escape his pleas, provided he did not keep it incessantly in his eye. Then pictures of his happy time came floating toward him, more and more in mist-like ranks. There were also pictures that rose in a sudden glamor round about him, and others flitted by so indefinite, so distant, that they were gone before he really knew what they were. He sat silently in the snow, overcome by light and color, by light and happiness, and the dark fear which he had had at first that something would come and extinguish all this had gone. It was very still round about him, a great peace was within him, the pictures had disappeared, but happiness was here. A deep silence! There was not a sound, but sounds were in the air. And there came laughter and song and low words came and light and footsteps and dull sobbing of the beats of the pumps.

Moaning he ran away, ran long and far, came to the lake, followed the sh.o.r.e, until he stumbled over the root of a tree, and then he was so tired that he remained lying.

With a soft clucking sound the water ran over the small stones; spasmodically there was a soft soughing among the barren limbs; now and then a crow cawed above the lake; and morning threw its sharp bluish gleam over forest and sea, over the snow, and over the pallid face.

At sunrise he was found by the ranger from the neighboring forest, and carried up to the forester Nicolai; there he lay for weeks and days between life and death.